


Black Telephone

by cloudsandpassingevents



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Minor Character Lovefest, Pitfall Aftermath, but not like you're expecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudsandpassingevents/pseuds/cloudsandpassingevents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tendo's alone the first time he hears the ghosts in the Dome.</p>
<p>(Or: Operation Pitfall has succeeded, the Breach is closed, and now it's time for the survivors who are left to start picking up the pieces.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Telephone

**Author's Note:**

> "If the dead are watching, I want them to see us writing, dancing, singing, painting. I want them to see that we still reach out to each other." -Richard Siken

Tendo almost misses it the first time it happens.

He’s at his station down in LOCCENT, sometime between too late at night and too early in the morning, two weeks after the Breach has been closed. Normally, he hates it–hates the late-night shift, hates staring at the computer readings waiting for a flicker of Kaiju activity–but lately, he finds that he’s spending entire nights here, fueled by cold coffee and insomnia. During the day, his old station is surrounded by PPDC bigwigs, clearing out old files and packing up computers and monitors to send to storage. The room still buzzes with people, but it’s a different kind from before; more brisk, more detached, with none of the warm exasperation there was before. The new techs pack silently, with robot-like efficiency, and Tendo stands and watches the room that he’s practically lived in for nearly three years be stripped away in three days.

When he comes here at night, though, if he closes his eyes, he can pretend that it’s just another night shift. That any second, the alarm will go off and Pentecost will be there, leaning over his shoulder and calling for Danger or Typhoon or Cherno or Striker to suit up, that the comms will crackle to life and they’ll send another Jaeger out–one more time.

He’s turned away from the monitor, digging in a file cabinet for some document that Herc–Marshall Hansen, he’s still getting used to that–asked him to find when, faintly, he hears talking from behind him.

_Which do you think would make him madder: if we stole his bow tie or his hair gel?_

_Bow tie._

_Are you kidding? Look at his hair. An hour every morning, guaranteed._

_How would you know? You don't even have hair._

_I’m sure he spends longer on his hair than he spends tying that bow tie._

_That’s because you don’t tie bow ties, Jin, you just hook them on in the back._

_Exactly my point._

_If he murders you two for taking his stuff, I’m not coming to help you._

_Cheung, what kind of big brother are you?_

_And anyways, if we die, how’re you gonna pilot Typhoon, huh?_

_I’ll pilot with Tendo. I’m sure he’d be willing._

_Yeah, and he’ll make you grow out your hair and wear a bow tie, too._

_Maybe your Jaeger will wear a bow tie!_

“Hilarious,” Tendo mutters under his breath. “I swear, guys, I will–”

No. He never will. Not anymore. Because all of them, Cheung and Hu and Jin and Typhoon are all somewhere in the port of Hong Kong, and they’re dead and he’ll never see them again–

Tendo takes a deep, shaky breath, and rests his head against the file cabinets. _Get it together, Tendo,_ he thinks. _They’re gone._ They've been through this before. They swept the harbor looking for them, dragged up pieces of the drivesuits, still shining red under all the dirt. _They're gone._

_But they sounded so real._

It must be the grief, he decides, pushing himself up from where he’s kneeling, file in hand. Too much grief and coffee and too little sleep.

He’s not a superstitious man, but he’s heard enough stories from pilots about ghost drifting, how they can hear their copilots for years after their deaths, to believe that at least some part of it is true. But he’s not a pilot. Non-combatants don’t ghost-drift. It doesn't happen.

He’s convinced himself that it was his imagination when he turns around and sees the monitor glowing behind him.

He’s sure he left it off.

And even if he didn’t, he knows that he didn’t open up Crimson Typhoon’s dossier today. He hasn’t looked at it since Typhoon was destroyed, but there it is on the screen, all three Weis’ pictures looking right back at him.

Nobody else is in the room, but Tendo checks over his shoulder a few times before locking the door that night.

\---

He takes the next three days off, and spends about two and a half in his room, sleeping–or at least trying to. With the way his sleep schedule is now, he’s lucky if he averages three hours a night.

When he goes back to LOCCENT, though, he feels more rested than he has in days. _Hopefully_ , he thinks as he settles back into the seat and pulls out a stack of paperwork, _that’s the end of that._ He’s got enough stuff to worry about as it is.

He’s about a third of the way through the papers, recopying transcripts and typing up transmissions from long-destroyed Jaegers, when he hits Horizon Brave’s file. It’s mixed in with the Mark-IVs for some reason, and Tendo almost puts it aside before he changes his mind and opens it up, scanning through the items.

Po Xichi and Lo Hin Shen’s pictures are still pinned to the dossiers, Xichi's on the right and Hin Shen's on the left, just like they were when they piloted.

**"PO, XICHI. Class of 2015. Birthplace: Wuhan, China. KIA 2023."**

**"LO, HIN SHEN. Class of 2015. Birthplace: Hong Kong, China. KIA 2023."**

It's been two years since Lima, since Sawtooth. Two years since Tendo sat in LOCCENT and listened to Xichi screaming, heard Hin Shen shouting into the comms: LOCCENT, we're losing control, the right side's not responding, the city hasn't been evacuated and we need backup, _somebody help us please–_

And he had watched the screens as Xichi's heart rate dropped, listened to Hin Shen cry out over and over in English and then in Mandarin and then Cantonese, just clear enough for Tendo to understand, before the comms went down.

He had woken up with that last transmission ringing in his ears for weeks afterwards.

Tendo squeezes his eyes shut. _You’re not helping anyone._ Gently, he runs his thumb over their pictures, trying to force the memory out.

Xichi glares back at the camera, serious, but the edge of her mouth is barely turned up, mirroring Hin Shen's lopsided grin in his picture. It's always made Tendo smile. There are other, almost unnoticeable signs of their years of drifting together–the tilt of their heads, the set of their shoulders, the glint in their eyes, although Xichi's is more aggressive, while Hin Shen's is still gently playful, even from two years and a lifetime away. Tendo can almost feel him walking up, clapping a hand on Tendo's shoulder and laughing at his protests when Xichi ruffles Tendo’s hair affectionately.

A drop falls onto Xichi's profile, and Tendo quickly closes the folder before he completely ruins the dossier. His shaky breathing echoes in the quiet room. He reaches up slowly and covers his eyes with his hand, leaning his head back against the chair.

Too many. Too many dead in too little time, and something in his throat tightens up as he thinks about it.  

_So if we weren't pilots, d'ya think we ever would have met?_

Tendo nearly jumps out of his seat.

_What kind of question is that?_

No. This–it's not possible. He's not. The Weis were one thing, but these voices–

_A legitimate one._

_A random one._

_You're random._

_And you're a five year old. I thought you were the older brother._

The comms are off. Tendo reaches under the desk and yanks the power cords out anyways. This is getting ridiculous. He’s a grown man and there’s no reason for him to be imagining ghosts. _Ghosts aren’t real. Ghosts aren’t real._ If he repeats it enough, maybe his brain will take a hint and shut up.

_You still haven’t answered my question._

Of course it doesn’t.

_Because it’s a stupid question._

_Humor me._

_...no. We wouldn’t have._

_How can you be so sure?_

_China’s pretty big. I failed high school math and even I can tell you that the chances of two people out of 1.2 billion meeting are pretty small._

_I dunno, I think–would you have joined the military? If the Kaiju hadn’t come?_

_Probably. Nowhere else for me to go._

_What, don’t tell me that you failed your exit exams?_

_…_

_Really?_

_You don’t need to sound so surprised._

_No, it’s just–my scores were terrible and even I got into college, how badly did you–_

_Just because I got bad grades doesn’t mean I can’t knock your teeth out._

The voices stop halfway through Hin Shen’s answer, and Tendo is left alone with the echo of their laughter still playing in his ears.

It’s a long time before he gets up out of his seat. He tells himself he wants to let his mind calm down, make it stop creating imaginary voices out of nothing before he really does go insane.

It’s easier than listening to the small part of him that quietly wishes the voices would come back.

\---

The knocking on his door jerks him awake. Blearily, Tendo raises his head from where it’s been lying on the stack of papers, and briefly wonders if his hallucinations have taken on physical form just to screw with him more.

Thankfully, Newt’s voice answers that question for him.

“Hey, man, open up! I’ve been out here for _ages_ , Tendo!”

Tendo drags himself to the door and pulls it open, and Newt whirls in, nearly tipping over the chair that he throws himself into.

"It's about time, dude. I thought I was gonna be out there forever."

Tendo rubs his eyes, trying to wake himself up. "Sorry," he mutters. God, his neck hurts. Shouldn't have gone to sleep there. "Fell...I fell asleep for a while."

"In here?" Newt sounds a little too surprised for someone who's become famous in the Dome for his ability to fall asleep anywhere. Tendo still remembers the photo that went viral about a year ago, when a reporter coming in to interview him arrived five minutes early and found him asleep with his face resting on a specimen, instruments dangling from his hands and head dangerously close to spilled Kaiju blue. Privately, Tendo’s always wondered why the reporter had taken a picture before checking if Newt was alive or not, but he supposes that the fact that Newt nearly knocked over the rest of the Kaiju blue on the man when he woke up was punishment enough.

He sighs heavily. He can't focus today.

"Yeah," he says, opening his eyes. "I was doing paperwork, lost track of the time..." he trails off. Newt's looking at him strangely. "Is something wrong?"

"What? No, no, man, it's nothing," Newt answers. He still looks concerned. "Just–I’ve been wondering what you've been up to."

Tendo frowns a little. "Why do you ask?"

Newt shifts a little in his chair, then stands up and begins pacing. "Well, I mean, it's been like a week since we closed the Breach, right? And I've only seen you, what, like twice? And you've, like, put yourself under house arrest here, and I didn't know what was up." He turns towards Tendo. "You doing okay?"

Truthfully, he doesn't know how to answer. "Better than a lot of people," he finally says, because at least that's not a lie.

"Good. Good." Newt's smile widens. "Hey, you know that baby Kaiju? I've been running some tests on it, and you wouldn't believe how complex these guys are–"

Newt keeps on rambling, and the excitement in his voice makes Tendo smile a little, even if he has no idea what half of the things he's saying mean.

_He's trying to distract you_ , he realizes, and the fact that it takes him so long to see through Newt, who is probably the most transparent person in the Dome, is probably a sign that he really does need some sleep.

_Or more coffee_ , he thinks, before he remembers that Alison took his coffee maker hostage three days earlier. He groans inwardly. _Damn_.

Newt suddenly stops in his tracks, and Tendo wonders if he's been speaking out loud. Newt's not looking at him, though.

"Did you hear something?" He half-turns towards the door, like he expects someone to come in. "I swear, I thought I heard someone knocking–"

_You know, once we get rid of these Kaiju, the first thing I'm going to do is sit down and eat literally every fucking piece of bread I can find._

Tendo freezes. _No. Not now. Not now–_

_Ladies and gentlemen, the girl who's going to save the world._

_Saviors need food, too, Zeke._

_You have food._

_I have corn bread and whatever the fuck that goop they serve in the mess hall is._

_Normal people call that porridge._

_Porridge is supposed to be thicker than water. It shouldn't fall off my spoon when I try to eat it._

_I can't believe I'm having this argument with you._

_Oh, really? We just killed a Kaiju and you can't believe that I'm hungry? I'm a growing girl!_

_You're older than me!_

_And you're scrawny. I could probably bench, like, three of you._

The voices stop there, and Tendo thanks every god in the universe that it was short this time.

He's almost scared to turn back around and face Newt. With a deep breath, he forces his expression back to semi-calm and swivels around.

Newt's gone completely white, tattoos standing out starkly on his skin. He's leaning hard on one of the tables, and Tendo's pretty sure he's never seen him so shaken before.

He doesn't know how to start explaining. _Sometimes I hear people who have been dead for years talking to me over the comms about bread._ Because that won't make Newt run out of the room screaming.

"...D-did you hear that?" Newt's voice is hoarse, almost too quiet to hear. He pushes his glasses up with a shaky hand. "I–I didn't just imagine that, right? Because I've never heard those voices in my life and I don't know who that was–"

He keeps talking, but only one thing registers in Tendo's mind: _He can hear them, too._

Relief floods through his chest, bright and sharp, and the fear that's been clamped around his lungs for weeks finally disappears. _They're real._ He reaches up and covers his eyes with a trembling hand, and a weak laugh bubbles up out of his throat. _I'm not crazy._

"Hey–Tendo, you okay?"

Newt looks like he's about to cut and run, which Tendo can't really blame him for. It's been a strange day for both of them.

"You can hear them too," he finally says, lifting his head up to look at Newt. He laughs again. "I'm not going crazy. I thought–but if you can hear them, too, then I can't be imagining things–"

"Okay, dude, slow down," Newt says, and wow, he must be really out of it if he's talking too fast for Newt. "So that thing I–we–just heard, that's not, like, you playing some kind of prank on me, or something like that, right? That's real?"

"Yeah. I–it's been going on for the past few weeks. I thought it was from–not sleeping enough or something at first, but–" he trails off.

Newt's fingers tap an irregular rhythm on the table. "Maybe–maybe someone's messing with you? Playing some old recordings or something?"

"No, that's impossible," Tendo says. "The comms are off, and anyways, we don't keep recordings of any transmissions. There's print stuff, but none of it's audio."

"Well, maybe they're playing a prank on you, then," Newt says, running a hand through his hair. "The pilots, I mean. Maybe they recorded themselves and sent it to you–"

"They’ve both been dead for two years."

That, at least, makes Newt stop in his tracks. "That's impossible," he says finally. He sits down in a chair across from Newt. "That–there's no way. Ghosts don't exist."

"We thought giant ocean aliens didn't exist either, but look at where we are now," Tendo points out.

Newt sits up a little straighter. "Okay, one,” he says, a touch offended, “Kaiju are completely different from ghosts. They're still technically alive, okay, even if they're controlled by a hive mind and aren’t carbon based life forms, and we have such a limited frame of reference for what life _is_ on Earth, so who are we to say that an organism made of silicon doesn't constitute a–"

"Point taken, Newt." Tendo turns towards the comms. "Look, I don't–I don't believe in ghosts, either, but that–that was Ili and Zeke, it _was_."

"...Who?"

He jerks his chin towards the computer. "The two you just heard. Ilisapie and Zeke. From Alaska." He pauses for a second, then pushes his chair towards the file cabinets. He might as well.

"Chrome Brutus’ pilots," he says from where he's half buried in files. Ah. There it is. From the very back of the cabinet, he pulls out a thick folder with **ALASKA–CHROME BRUTUS** printed across the front in thick letters. He tosses it to Newt.

Newt opens it and pulls out the first sheet: Ili's personal dossier. "Ilisapie Flint," he murmurs under his breath, scanning the page.

Tendo watches Newt read, mouthing the words along with him. _Birthday: June 9, 1995, Class of 2018. Ethnicity: Inuit. Jaeger: Chrome Brutus. Average neural sync: 98.7%. Quick to learn and adapt to different fighting styles. Takes risks during fights with mixed results._

"Range risk high," Newt reads out loud, confused.

"How close you get pushed towards the coastline," Tendo explains automatically. "High risk means you're not good at containing your fights. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think Ili and Zeke only had one fight where they didn't finish inside the miracle mile." The edge of his mouth quirks up humorlessly. "That's what got them in the end."

"But no Kaiju ever got through to an Alaskan city."

"It didn't get through. They stopped it." Tendo closes his eyes. "Hit the self-destruct five miles offshore to keep the city from getting nuked."

As he says it, the ache in his chest digs a little deeper. Pitfall's still too fresh–not something he wants to think about, now or ever. The sound of the explosion is still seared into his brain–

_No_. Tendo forces the thought away, packs it back up and stores it in a corner of his mind. It won't do anyone any good to think about it now.

Newt, from the looks of it, is thinking about the same thing, and Tendo desperately scours his brain for a topic to change the subject. "They were cousins," he says finally. "Ili flew rescue helos, and Zeke explored caves. She was the one who dragged him in." He smiles a little. "I think he went up to the marshal one day and told him–"

_Sometimes I wonder why I let you drag me into this._

Both their heads whip towards the comms.

_You're just sore that you lost to me again. What's Mom gonna say? Six-one? That's just sad._

_It's about teamwork, not you trying to rip my head off._

_Your neck's too thick for me to rip your head off. Now, your balls, on the other hand–_

_You try that and you won't get to be my kids' favorite aunt._

_You won't have kids if I rip your balls off, idiot._

_Exactly. Fuck, I can't even lie down without something hurting._

_You can show your boo-boos to Jay later and let him kiss them better._

_Oh, is that why you beat me up? I'm touched, Ili._

It cuts off abruptly. For a long moment, neither of them moves.

“D-did you hear that?!”

Newt’s voice nearly makes Tendo jump out of his seat. _Jesus–how does Hermann survive in that lab with him?_ “Yeah,” he says. Clearing his throat, he adds, “There’s never been two in one night before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s–they’re usually two or three weeks apart. I think, at least. It’s only happened twice before, so–” Tendo trails off, looking at Newt. He's still paler than usual, but there’s a glint in his eyes that Tendo, unfortunately, knows a little too well. He’s tapping out that rhythm on the table again, too, and staring off into space, deep in thought. Tendo can almost see his mind racing. “It’s probably just a coincidence–” Tendo begins, but Newt cuts him off.

“Coincidence? Look, the chances of there being two transmissions on the _one_ day I come here–” he stops himself, and Tendo can literally see his mind racing ahead of his words. For a few seconds, he stands in the middle of the room in silence, before suddenly turning to Tendo again. “Dates. When did you hear the other two transmissions?”

Well. At least he came out of it with a question that actually makes sense. “Today’s the...fifth of March? The first one was–let’s see, a week after Pitfall, so...January 19, about. And the second one was maybe February 15?”

Newt nods absentmindedly. Now that Tendo thinks about it, he looks half-dead too, more tired than he’s ever seen him. His glasses have slidden halfway down his nose, and it looks like he’s completely given up on trying to introduce any semblance of order to the glorified piece of fabric he calls a shirt. The bags under his eyes stand out against his face, which, Tendo realizes, is paler than usual. Newt looks as bad as him.

Neither of them are soldiers, but this war took a toll on them, too.

“Hey,” he says quietly, jerking Newt out of his reverie, “how about we go grab some coffee together? Alison took my stash hostage, but they have a pretty good blend in the cafeteria, if you know where to look.”

Newt lets Tendo lead him out of the room, but the whole way out, he keeps looking back at the comms, and Tendo can read the glint in his eyes all too clearly: _It’s not over yet. I’m not letting this go._

\---

This time, only four days go by before he hears the pounding on his door. "It's open," he calls, walking towards his seat from the back room with a cup of coffee in each hand (Alison gave the machine back to him two days ago, after extracting a promise that he wouldn't drink more than two cups a day, although he has the feeling that the only reason why she gave in so easily is because she's installed some kind of spy cam in it to make sure he's okay, which is equal parts sweet and creepy).

Even before he enters the main room, he can hear two people arguing, one voice getting increasingly higher and higher as the speaker gets more and more excited, and the other distinctly _not_.

"Newton, this is absolutely absurd. There are no ghosts, and if there were, I am a _scientist_ , not a parapsychologist, and there is no earthly reason for you dragging me here in the dead of night–"

"Newt, Doctor Gottlieb," Tendo calls out as he enters the main room. From where he's sprawled across a table, Newt waves hello, and Hermann straightens up in the rolling chair where he’s sitting and inclines his head. "I didn't expect to see both of you here tonight."

"Yeah, well, I told Herm about what happened–"

" _Hermann_ , you idiotic–"

"And _Herm_ ," Newt continues, apparently oblivious to how Hermann is turning multiple shades of purple at once next to him, "wouldn't believe me. So I asked him to come to prove to him that I was right."

"You didn't _ask_ me, you imbecile, you bodily dragged me here without my permission," Hermann hisses. "Would it be too much to ask you to behave like an adult for once in your life?” He turns towards Tendo, accepting the cup of coffee that he hands him with a nod of thanks. Behind him, Newt sticks his tongue out at Hermann petulantly. "Would it kill you to not act like my mother all the time?" he asks, swiping Tendo's coffee and taking a gulp. "Seriously, dude, I know eighty-year olds who are less uptight than you."

Hermann bristles. "Forgive me for not wanting to indulge in your childish fantasies, _Doctor_ Geizler."

"They're not childish!"

"A man who calls himself a scientist–"

"I heard them myself, Hermann! What kind of scientist would I be if I ignored hard evidence against what I thought was true?"

"I hardly would call something that you heard 'hard evidence,' Newton."

"That's why I brought you here! So you can hear them for yourself."

That gives Hermann pause, at least, which is good, because if the conversation had gone on much longer, Tendo thinks he would have given himself whiplash looking back and forth between the two of them. "I will wait, then," Hermann says, although the look on his face clearly says he'd rather be anywhere else but here. "But I warn you, Newton, should this be a waste of my time-"

"Then you should thank me for getting you out of your office and forcing you to interact with human beings," Newt says. "I haven't seen you and Tendo outside for more than ten minutes at a time since forever."

That's what Alison said, too, when she visited him two days ago, and Tendo feels a sharp pang of guilt. He should go out and find her and apologize, talk to Mako and Raleigh and Herc and do all the other things he should do–

Even just thinking about it, he knows he won't. They all have enough on their plates as it is without having to deal with his grief as well. He won't be a burden to anyone else. _Endure this_ , he thinks, and if the words ring a little more hollow in his ears than before, it's just his imagination.

"–know, if you would just let me handle stuff, instead of having to check over _every single inventory_ before it leaves the lab–I mean, come on, you're checking over _my_ inventories most of the time and you're not even a biologist–"

"And yet I'm more competent at it than you, considering that three samples of Kaiju blue mysteriously 'disappeared' while you were in charge–"

"I told you, I needed to finish an experiment on those! I'll put them back before the end of the week, okay–"

"Just stop that infernal racket now," Hermann growls, picking up his cane and laying it in his lap. "How do you expect me to hear any kind of activity when you keep blabbering on?"

Newt opens his mouth, looking like he wants to tell Hermann exactly where to shove that Kaiju blue, but his desire to be right beats out his desire to get the last word in, so he drops back into his chair. Tendo tries, rather unsuccessfully, to hide his smile at the expression on his face. If only he kept a camera in here.

The room is silent for about twenty minutes, save the quiet drumming of Newt’s feet on the floor. Tendo entertains himself by trying to name the Kaiju inked across Newt’s skin. _Yamarashi, Hardship, Trespasser, Karloff._ And from underneath his shirt collar, Otachi and Leatherback, the skin around them still pink and irritated. Recent ones, then.

Pilots are no strangers to tattoos, either, Tendo thinks. Even the most conservative ones have their Jaeger’s seal inked somewhere on them, and the others–well, Newt has nothing on them. He still remembers the look on Duc’s face when he saw Kaori in a tank top for the first time, the full-body tattoo wrapping around her torso and stopping just short of what a high turtleneck could cover. (“It’s...tradition, in my family,” she had said, and Tendo learned that day just how terrifying a five-foot tall, soft-spoken Japanese woman could be.)

Duc had never gotten the full tattoo (Kaori wouldn’t let him), but Ronin’s sigil was stamped on his back, and he had Kaori and Ayame’s names curling around one wrist. And the others–the Gages had Romeo’s symbol on their arms, far up enough to be hidden by any shirt with sleeves, a habit left over from their USAF days. Right arm for Bruce, left arm Trevin–“We were going to get the same arm, but we’re not _that_ cruel,” Trevin had said. Jesus had Matador’s on his chest, and Carlos always said his was in the same place, even though Tendo’d be hard pressed to find it hidden in all the other tattoos on his skin. And Kennedy–he remembers the flowering vine that covered most of her right calf, expertly masking the Drivesuit scars left there (“They make me look like a robot,” she said, unwrapping the bandage as she showed Tendo the new jasmine blossoms that dotted her leg, and Stephanie had rolled her eyes, but she showed up for dinner three days later with her left arm wrapped in gauze and the tiniest white flower peeking out on top). Even Yuna had two delicate fencing epeés crossing on the inside of her wrist, courtesy of Soyi’s persistent wheedling.

And Raleigh had Danger tattooed on him twice–once on his arm, to match Yancy's, and a brand new one, right where the darkest burn scars were on his chest, a perfect twin to the one poking out from beneath Mako's sleeve.

Ink, it turned out, is remarkably good at hiding scars.

_Well_ , Tendo amends, remembering sitting next to a sedated, delirious Raleigh in an Anchorage hospital, _some scars, at least._

He absentmindedly runs his finger over the cross on his hand. He's picked up a few Ranger habits himself.

Maybe he's picked up some of their scars, too.

Hermann finally breaks the silence in the room. "How long do you intend to keep me waiting here, Newton?"

"The transmissions usually come once a week," Tendo starts, grateful for the distraction. Hermann interrupts.

"Once a week? Then why, exactly, am I here today if there's already been a transmission this week?"

"I thought maybe they'd get more frequent the longer they went on! That's what that math model-thingy of yours said–"

"It was applicable to Kaiju attacks, not to–to ghosts, or whatever this is! Newton, I don't understand how you ever received your PhD–"

"Maybe they just don't like you being here–"

"Really, and they prefer your company? I pity the ghost who has to spend eternity listening to your drivel–"

"Oh, so it's because they think I'm not worth listening to?" Newt spins around and lifts his head up, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"What are you–"

"Hey, guys! Why don't you come out and show Hermann how wrong he is?"

Newt's voice echoes around the silent room. For a second, they wait, anticipation thick in the air. Then Hermann scoffs, pushing himself up with his cane out of the seat. He leans heavily on it, his bad leg apparently numb from sitting for so long. "This is preposterous, Newton, and quite frankly, I don't know why I let you waste this much of my time here." He turns towards the door, nodding at Tendo. "I will be in the lab. Don't call me up unless you have a valid reason next time."

"Hermann!" Newt shouts, turning around and coming after the other man. "There's going to be one tonight, I know there is!"

_And how would you know that?_

"Well, like I said–"

"Not you!" Hermann hisses, pressing a hand against Newt's chest. That does shut him up momentarily, to Tendo's surprise.

_I've literally been in your brain for the better half of my life. Why are you even surprised by now._

Even Newt has to know those voices. PPDC's golden boys were plastered over every flat surface back then, interviews on every news channel and talk show and radio program that could get ahold of them. Anybody alive in 2015 would have had to be blind and deaf and living on a deserted island to boot to not recognize Bruce and Trevin Gage.

"Is that–"

"Shut. Up." Herman's face is white, and he staggers back a little, eyes still fixed on some point on the ceiling. "It's impossible," he whispers, and Tendo remembers that Hermann started out in the LA Dome in 2015–the year Bruce and Trevin were first deployed.

_Well, I'm in your head, and I don't look at any of your personal shit._

_Yes, you do, you just don't tell me. You're not very subtle._

_Well, I don't bring up your personal shit in front of random people–_

_Trev. I’m in your brain. She’s not a random person._

_You know what I mean._

_You two've been dancing around it for months. I'm tired of listening to you whine at me._

_But you asked her in front of everyone. And for the record, I don't whine._

_Neither of you would ever own up to it if I did it in private. You two are fucking–_

_Actually, we aren't. Not much, at least._

_You know that's not what I meant, you little–_

_Hey, there was an opportunity and I took it._

_You two are like goddamn teenagers. It's like you've never had a girlfriend before. Oh, and also, you do whine. I just put up with it._

_So, what? Do you expect me to thank you for embarrassing the hell out of me now?_

_No, I want you to grow a pair and ask her out on a date next week, or I might have to tell her some other things I found in the Drift._

_..That's blackmail._

_It's for your own good._

_Are you sure you're not going to get lonely, left behind here all by yourself?_

_Worry about yourself, kid._

And then it ends in a burst of static. No one speaks for a while. Tendo imagines the ghosts watching them: three lonely people, living in a world they don’t belong in and waiting for dead men to talk to. It’s so pathetic that he almost laughs.

Hermann is the first one to break the silence. Slowly, he leans back on the table behind him, using his hand to support himself. He opens his mouth, then seems to reconsider and closes it, before sighing and closing his eyes. “Newton,” he says finally, placing his shaking hands on the cane, “I suppose I...owe you an apology.”

Tendo has never seen anyone perk up so quickly. “I _told_ you, Hermann,” Newt answers, not without a hint of pride. “You should have known–”

“Yes, yes, we’ve covered that, so let’s move on,” Hermann says irritably. Amused, Tendo wonders if there’s a limit to how much _Newt_ Hermann can handle in a day. The bar seems to be set pretty low.

Hermann slowly runs a hand over the transmitter, like he’s afraid the voices will pop out again and tell him to keep his hands to himself. “This...no longer functions?”

“Yeah,” Tendo says. He gestures at the mess of wires under the desk. “All of it’s basically disabled. We don’t get any signal on anything in this room.”

“So–” Newt cuts in. “Maybe someone’s just–really good at imitating voices?”

Hermann shakes his head. “Those voices were not faked. I knew them for years. Those were their voices.”

“Well, then, maybe–maybe they recorded themselves before they died,” Newt suggests. “Maybe someone found that and sent it to us.”

“Why would you do that, though?” Tendo asks. “The only people who would have access to their things are their parents and Her–the marshal. You can’t be suggesting that they’d do something like this.”

“Well, there’s gotta be some reason why these are happening! I mean, if there are actual ghosts here, why the hell are they sending us these messages?”

“Are you really trying to understand ghost psychology?” Tendo asks.

“Hey, I’m a biologist, okay? Understanding this sort of stuff is what I’m all about–”

“And I,” Hermann interjects, turning from the table to look at them both, “am a mathematician, and while this is all very mysterious, I’m afraid I can’t be much help to you, so I shall be taking my leave now.” He stumps across the room rather hurriedly towards the door. Newt watches him, perplexed, but gets up as well, stretching his legs and swiping Tendo’s now-cold coffee.

“I wanna go start researching this stuff,” he says, handing back the cup. “So yeah, I’ll keep you updated if I get anything, okay? Cool.” And he waltzes out the door, flicking Hermann in the back of the head as he passes him and ducking out of the stream of verbal abuse he receives into the hallway.

Tendo sits in the silence for a moment, thinking, then pushes himself out of his seat and walks into the hallway after the two men. “Hermann?” he calls.

Hermann turns around. The hallway is deserted at this time of night, the sound of Newt’s quick footsteps already fading away. “Is something the matter?”

“No, it’s just...I’m just curious. How–how’d you recognize Bruce and Trevin’s voices so quickly?”

He doesn’t get an answer at first. Hermann pauses, his back facing Tendo. His shoulders are slumped, just the tiniest bit. Almost not enough to notice.

Finally, he sighs and turns around to face Tendo, leaning heavily on his cane. “When I first began working for the PPDC in 2015, they stationed me in Los Angeles. Romeo Blue was part of that strike group as well. We were...friends, after a fashion.”

A little smile appears on his face. “I had immense respect for them. Truly. They...they were good pilots, good men.” There’s a tightness in his voice Tendo’s never heard before.

“They were,” he answers, and he believes it. He never met Bruce or Trevin in person, but everyone had heard of them. USAF pilots who switched tracks into the Jaeger program and passed everything they threw at them with flying colors. _PPDC’s golden boys_ , people called them, and it was true; they were everything anyone could have wanted a Jaeger pilot to be.

He hadn’t been in Los Angeles when Reaper hit Seattle, but he had seen the news the next morning, and mourned the Gages along with the rest of the nation. _Good men_ , Hermann had called them, and Tendo knows it’s true without ever having spoken to them.

When they pulled their bodies out of the conn-pod, Bruce had a fractured knee, two cracks in his tibia, and a broken ankle. Beside him, Trevin’s ribs had been smashed, his left shoulder badly dislocated–all wounds received, according to the autopsy, at least thirty minutes before death. Their final transmission came at 8:33 PM, ten minutes before Reaper smashed the conn-pod with them in it: _Weapons are shot. Gonna to try and lure it away from the city._

He looks up to see Hermann looking at him, not unkindly. “I was honored to know them,” Hermann says softly, before he turns to go. Tendo leans against the door, listening to the sound of footsteps slowly fade as Hermann climbs down the stairs. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine Bruce and Trevin as they were, brothers who had teased each other and laughed and lived, who were willing to fight giants so that other brothers could tease and laugh and live as well.

In his mind, he sees two quiet, matching smiles, and for the first time in a few weeks, he can’t help smiling back.

\---

The next day, Tendo actually wants to go outside for the first time in a long while.

Naturally, that means that the universe won't let him do that.

He spends the entire day stuck in LOCCENT, directing the techs as they pack equipment up and move it out, to be carried off and stored god-knows-where. They move fast, but it's nearly six before the last box is taped up and taken out, and by then, Tendo's running on fumes.

With a long sigh, he drops into a chair and surveys the room, exhausted. His eye falls on the empty head officer's chair. The computer's gone, along with the comms, and it makes him think of LOCCENT’s ghosts. He wonders if this means the transmissions will stop now.

He’s not sure if he wants them to or not.

Shaking his head, he stands up from the chair. His feet protest angrily, but he wants to go and talk to Raleigh and Mako during dinner, find out what they think about all this. Rest can wait until later.

He pulls the door open and nearly walks right into one Marshal Hansen.

“Ah, sorry,” the marshal says, as Tendo jumps backwards nearly two feet. “I didn’t expect you to be there.” He stands a little stiffly in the doorway, looking distinctly uneasy in his dress blues. It’s not a look that suits him, but it’s one that Tendo’s seen more and more often since Pitfall, when he’s Marshal Hansen during long meetings with PPDC bureaucrats instead of Herc, running laps around the Dome with Max waddling at his heels furiously.

Come to think of it, he can’t remember the last time he talked to Herc.

“No harm done, sir,” he says, opening the door a little wider as the marshal walks by. “Did you want to talk to me about something?”

The marshal slowly walks along the border of the empty room, one hand trailing on the tables. “They come in and clear everything out today?”

“Yes, sir. LOCCENT’s all packed up and ready to go.”

Hansen nods. When he looks up, he’s right in front of the window into the loading bay, where Tendo used to sit.

For a long time, he looks at the empty bay, and Tendo wonders if he sees Striker, with a bomb strapped to her back and an unfamiliar copilot standing where he should have been. The window is dark and the marshal’s face is reflected against it faintly, but Tendo can’t tell if the over-brightness in his eyes is from the glare of the fluorescent lights or not.

“Inventory’s taken care of, Tendo?”

Tendo snaps to attention reflexively. “Yes, sir. Ten computers, two radios, the Breach radar…” He gets the sense that Hansen’s not really paying attention, but he keeps talking anyways, listing off everything they’ve taken away over the past few days. The marshal nods in all the right places and asks all the right questions, but he never takes his eyes off the empty bay. In the back of his mind, Tendo wonders what he’s looking for. _Who, maybe._

When Tendo’s run out of questions to answer, the marshal puts his hand down on the table, right where the comms used to be, and turns around to face him. “These ghosts,” he says quietly. “How long’ve you been hearing them?”

Tendo stiffens as a flash of surprise shoots through him. _How did–_

“I’m not spying on you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Hansen says. The corner of his mouth quirks up the tiniest bit. “Though I’d warn you in the future, you’d best not be giving your secrets to Doctor Geizler and Doctor Gottlieb. Heard them shouting about it this morning.”

“I probably should have expected that,” Tendo admits. Then he looks up at Hansen, clasping his hands behind his back. “The transmissions, sir. Started January 19 when I heard the Weis. I was alone in LOCCENT at the time.”

He walks the marshal through all the transmissions they’ve gotten so far. It’s easier, he finds, if he treats it like an inventory. Not Rangers, not friends, just a list of names and dates.

When he finishes, Hansen is quiet for a long time, looking at the wall. “All pilots killed in action,” he finally says. He looks back at the window for a second, like he’s trying to steel himself to ask another question. “You ever hear anything from Coyote?”

“Little fragments, sir.” Sometimes the transmissions get jumbled at the end, other voices mixing in. Most of them are too short for him to recognize, but at the end of one of them, he’d heard a laugh that he was almost sure was Tamsin’s, before the second voice came on.

It’s not easy to forget a voice you’ve spent the last six years believing in.

“First crew or second?”

“Only Pentecost and Sevier so far.”

Something flickers in the marshal’s eyes that from this distance could be taken as either hope or despair. “Ever hear anything from just one pilot?” he finally asks.

_...Oh._ Tendo closes his eyes for a second, but he can’t bring himself to lie. Not to Herc. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Hansen half-turns around at that, and a small, humorless smile plays on his lips. “Am I that obvious, Tendo?” With one last look into the bay, he crosses the room and places a hand on Tendo’s shoulder. “Don’t want to hear you apologizing for things that aren’t your fault,” he says, and for a second, he sounds almost like a father again.

“Come back at 10,” Tendo says quickly. When the marshal doesn’t say anything, he continues. “The transmissions usually start then. I–I don’t know if they’ll still–the comms are gone, but I think maybe we can still get them–”

“Appreciate the offer, Tendo, but I’ve got a meeting tonight,” the marshal replies, gesturing at the dress blues he’s wearing. “Sorry.” He pushes the door open and steps out, inclining his head slightly at Tendo before striding quickly out into the hallway.

He should leave and get some dinner, too. Maybe he’ll go with Alison. It’s pretty late, but she eats at around this time usually, and he owes it to her. He owes her a lot of dinners by now.

The echo of his shoes in the empty hallway reminds him of how quickly the marshal left earlier, and a pang of grief and guilt shoots through him. He’ll get back in time to hear the transmission tonight, see if maybe they get someone different. _If there is one,_ he reminds himself. Who knows if the ghosts will be able to find them now, with all the equipment gone.

_Then again,_ he thinks, heading down the stairs, _if anyone’s bull-headed enough to find a way around that and come back to haunt us anyways, it’s Chuck._

\---

_Damn_ , Tendo thinks, hurrying down the hallway towards LOCCENT and checking his watch. _10:20_. He's going to have to hurry if he wants to get there in time-that is, if he isn't already late.

Originally, he'd intended to be back by 9:40, but he hasn't seen Alison for weeks, now, and really, he's been such a crappy boyfriend lately that it's a wonder she hasn't broken up with him yet, and he has missed her a lot. And then one thing led to another and then it was 10:05 and he was still in her apartment, half-naked, when he realized that he was going to be late.

The universe really does hate him sometimes.

As he gets closer to the door, he hears quiet clinking coming from behind it. He pauses outside, frowning. _I could have sworn that I left the door locked._

Cautiously, he pushes the door open. “Is someone in there?”

The clinking stops. Just when he’s ready to bolt the other way down the hall, Mako steps out to where he can see her. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says, her hands wrapped around a thermos of tea. Tendo can see his coffee machine plugged in behind her, humming away with a full pot of coffee underneath it.

He takes a deep breath, trying to slow down his heart. “Don’t worry about it, Mako, I just wasn’t–expecting a person here,” he says, coming in and closing the door behind him. “Have a seat.”

She does. “I hope you don’t mind, I used your coffee machine for hot water–”

“Of course I don’t mind. I’m impressed you still remember how to use it.”

“It hasn’t been that long, has it?” she says, a small smile on her lips. Blowing on her tea, she leans back into the chair, and some of the stiffness in her shoulders melts away.

_If anyone has an excuse to be holed up in their room doing nothing, it’s Mako_ , Tendo thinks, going over to the machine and pouring himself a cup of coffee. _But it's not like she'd ever do that if there was work to be done_. The little girl he remembers from eight years ago, the first time Pentecost had brought her to the dome when Tendo had been there, is still there in front of him, all politeness and quietness masking steel-hard determination.

Ranger Mako Mori. It suited her then when she had told him with young, too-solemn eyes that she was going to be a pilot, and it suits her now, the rookie Ranger who saved the world.

Being a pilot is useless right now, though, and Mako has never liked useless things. She’s unofficially Marshal Hansen’s second-in-command these days, spends her days chasing down funding for Jaeger vets, cutting through red tape, reasoning with bureaucrats over the phone for hours on end. Mako’s talented at it, just like everything else she puts her mind to, but Tendo sees the lines around her mouth and the exhaustion in her eyes and wonders. It’s been too long since he’s seen her smile.

That reminds him. “Where’s Raleigh?” he asks, turning around with his mug to face her.

The corner of her mouth twitches. “In bed, sick,” she answers. “He won’t let me see him because he’s afraid I might catch it, too.”

Tendo grins. “Poor kid.” Catching the back of the chair near him, he sits, swiveling to face Mako. “So what brings you here?”

Mako’s face stays calm, but her eyes flicker to where the transmitter was on the far desk for a second. _Of course_ , Tendo thinks.

“I can’t call them up, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I know.” She pauses. “Which pilots...do you usually hear from?”

He doesn’t want to get her hopes up. It’s 10:35 now and there’s still nothing coming through. Chances are there’s not going to be anything tonight. Maybe never again, for all he knows.

Still.

He sighs. “I’ve gotten bits and pieces from Coyote, but no full-on conversations yet. Maybe we’ll get one later, or maybe the transmissions are just going to stop now, since all the equipment’s gone.” He takes a sip of the water.

Mako’s silent. Her hands wrap around the thermos, let go, and then wrap themselves around again.

“It’s only the first day since the equipment’s gone, though, so I wouldn’t get too discouraged if nothing comes through today,” he says, forcing his voice to sound optimistic. “There’s always a chance.”

“Do you think that they’re real? That they’re really ghosts talking?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Tendo admits. “I know the transmissions are real, but if there are ghosts making them? Honestly, I don’t–I think it’s like–like ghost drifting, but through the comms. Old conversations that they had that are still...floating around, that we’re hearing.”

“But how can we hear the conversations?”

“That, I can’t answer.”

Mako looks down into her tea. “What kind of person would come back as a ghost, do you think?”

That throws him for a loop. “What kind of person?” He rubs the back of his neck. “People with unfinished business, isn’t that what everyone says? People who still have things they need to do?”

Mako stands up and walks towards the window. “In Japan, the ghosts that stay are never the happy ones. People who died in bad ways. People who committed suicide or were murdered–there are ghosts for people who died in the sea, too–”

She trails off, but he knows what she’s thinking.

There’s nothing he can say to that.

“You know a lot about mythology,” he finally says, trying to change the subject, and then has to take a sip of water to suppress the urge to hit himself, because that’s literally the most idiotic thing he could have come up with.

She turns towards him, a small smile playing on her lips. “I read a lot when I was young. Ghosts and vampires and monsters, they were my favorite stories.”

“And they never gave you nightmares?”

“I think nothing was scary after Tokyo,” she says quietly.

_Right. Why don't you shove your foot deeper in your mouth, Tendo._

"Still," he says. "I can't believe Pentecost would let you read those."

"He was very accepting of my tastes. But for scary movies, he always insisted on watching them with me so that he could turn them off it they got too scary." A pause. "Of course, he usually fell asleep before the scary parts happened.”

He's never imagined it, but it's easy to see: him sleeping on an old sofa, the light of the TV illuminating his face, a young Mako curled into his side. "He must have been a good father," he muses quietly.

Mako nods silently, thoughtfully. "Tamsin was always surprised at how much he liked children," she murmurs. "Because he was so much more serious than her."

"He was a very...stoic person."

"Yes, but not always," Mako says. "He would do strange things if it made me happy. I remember–" she stops for a second and swallows, then continues. "When he first brought me to his home. I didn't speak English and he didn't speak Japanese. And I was so scared that I spent three days hiding under my bed. He put food next to me and I would come out when he left to eat. But on the third day–he sat down by the bed and started telling me a story. An old Japanese story that my mother used to tell me. And he told the whole thing in Japanese."

Tendo blinks. "Wow."

"Yes. And after he finished, he asked me to teach him to correct his pronunciation. We did that for a few days, and..." she smiles, shrugs a little. "I got out from under the bed."

"You were a lucky girl," Tendo says quietly.

"Very lucky," she agrees. She swallows hard for a second, blinks quickly. "There’s a story," she says, her voice shaking. "A very traditional one. That he used to read. It's about a mother who gives her daughter a mirror when she's dying, and tells her that every time she looks into it, she'll see her mother looking back. And when the girl grows up, she looks in the mirror, and she sees her mother in her own reflection." Her voice cracks on the last words, and she lowers her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

Tendo half-stands to go to her, but she waves him off. "I'm fine." She takes another shaky breath and rubs her eyes, and Tendo looks down at his coffee, trying to give her some privacy. His reflection stares up at him.

_What you see in the mirror, Mako?_ he wonders.

When he looks back at her, she's composed again, checking her watch. "It's very late, and I have a meeting tomorrow morning. I should go."

He nods and walks with her to the door. "I'm sorry there was nothing tonight."

"You couldn't have predicted it," she says. "Don't worry about it."

He opens the door and she steps out, before changing her mind and turning around. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Letting me talk to you."

"Oh,” he says, a little surprised. “It’s–you're welcome. And Mako," he calls impulsively as she walks away.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for letting me hear that story."

She smiles slightly and bows her head a little. As Tendo watches her walk away, back straight and head held high, he thinks about Pentecost sitting on the floor, his patient voice stumbling over the words of a story for a little girl hiding under her bed.

_You would be proud of what she sees in that mirror, marshal_ , he thinks as he heads back in.

\---

Raleigh’s spinning in the swivel chair when he comes in the next evening. Beside him, Newt is grinning, and even Hermann has something that could pass as a smile on his face.

Mako looks up at Tendo and smoothly moves to catch the back of Raleigh’s chair as it passes her, bringing him to an abrupt stop.

“Mako, come on, I was–oh, hey, Tendo.”

“How you feeling, Raleigh?” Tendo asks, clapping him on the shoulder as he walks by and sits down in his own chair.

“Good as new.”

“You weren’t actually sick yesterday, were you?” Mako asks exasperatedly, one corner of her mouth twitching up.

“Hey, look, sometimes you feel better but you can still infect people–”

“I have already been sick this year, I am immune–”

"Okay, you two, I'm an actual biologist, and you're literally trampling all over my field–"

_He's missed this_ , Tendo realizes. Just being here, listening to this. It's loud in the crowded room, and certain voices are rising to higher and higher pitches as the conversation goes on, but it's strangely comforting as well. Like he belongs here, with the crazy bunch of misfits and loose ends that somehow saved the world.

_Families are weird_ , he remembers Tamsin saying, and he thinks, _If only you knew._

Over the din, he hears a woman laugh, and he thinks to himself, _At least we made Mako smile, if nothing else._

It takes him a second before he realizes that the voice is too low to be Mako's. It takes another second before he can place it.

"Everybody quiet, now!" he shouts, trying for his best Stacker imitation. He's vaguely surprised that actually works: everyone pauses just in time for the laughter to stop and the voice to keep talking.

_You literally know nothing about robots, Stacks._

_Look, some of those were impossible to get, alright, Tam–_

Behind him, Tendo hears a sharp intake of breath. Turning, he sees Mako gripping the back of Raleigh's chair, knuckles white. Raleigh's gone pale, too, but he still reaches up and places his hand over Mako's and squeezes gently.

_You got the Star Wars robots wrong. You’re lucky I’m a nice person, Stacker, there are some pilots who’d never drift with you again for that._

_In my defense, I’ve never seen Star Wars–_

"Never watched Star Wars?" Newt whispers in a tone of voice that would have been more appropriate if Pentecost had just said that he had never breathed air before. "How can you–"

"Shhhhhh!" Hermann hisses, slapping his hand over Newt's mouth. The other man wriggles away, scowling and muttering about that "Godawful lotion you use, tastes like shit, Herm."

_–pop culture, now, Stacks, there’s literally no one who doesn’t know who they are! And you missed K-9, too! Don’t you Brits grow up on Doctor Who?_

_I have never watched an episode of Doctor Who in my life._

_You make me ashamed to be seen with you in public. As soon as we get back, we’re doing a marathon._

_Of what?_

_Of–of literally everything. God, how have you been in my head for so long without picking any of this stuff up–_

_We’re flying out for an interview this weekend, aren’t we?_

_It’s a three hour plane ride. That’s long enough for–_

_All of Firefly?_

_I told you not to make jokes about that. It's too soon._

_It’s been fourteen years._

_It's always too soon._

_So what are you going to start me on?_

_I think–there’s not enough time to get through Star Wars–we’ll watch the Iron Giant._

_…no relation to Coyote, right?_

_She’s made of titanium alloy. I still can’t believe you called it Iron Man._

_I got the Iron part, at least–_

_That doesn’t make up for anything!_

Tendo hears someone behind him take a shaky breath as the transmission cuts off. When he turns around, Mako is sitting where Raleigh was. He’s standing behind her, hands on her shoulders. Her head is down, elbows resting on her knees, but even under Raleigh's hands, her shoulders are shaking faintly.

No one moves except Raleigh, who kneels down in front of her and gently pushes the hair back from her face and rests her forehead against his. She sighs shakily and places her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder.

Tendo half-swivels away, feeling like he's intruding. Beside him, Hermann's hands tighten around his cane, and he looks down, eyes closed. Newt looks doggedly at the window, avoiding everyone's eyes. Nobody says anything.

Naturally, Newt ends up speaking first. "Has he really never watched Star Wars?"

Tendo opens his mouth, but Mako beats him to it. Raising her head from Raleigh's shoulder, she smiles the tiniest bit. Her eyes are red, but the rest of her face is dry when she speaks. "Tamsin made him watch it with us the last time we were in Hawaii," she says quietly. "She said she wasn't about to die without making sure that Stacker wouldn't embarrass himself like that again."

The room is quiet. Tendo tries to imagine the three of them, sitting around a hospital bed watching old movies, Mako curled into Tamsin's side and Stacker's arm around them both. It's not something he would have imagined the marshal ever doing.

He knew Marshal Pentecost well, but he wonders if Stacker Pentecost was anything like the man he knew.

"Hard to imagine him doing that," Newt says, voicing Tendo's thoughts.

Hermann scowls at him. "What a man does in his spare time is none of your business, Newton–”

"It's alright," Mako says, straightening up in her chair. "I don't think he had much interest in them, either, but Tamsin asked him to, and he never said no to her."

Newt raises an incredulous eyebrow. "Are we talking about the same Pentecost here?"

"You only say that because you never met Tam, Newt," Tendo mutters. "She had us all whipped." Raleigh's mouth twitches up a little at that.

"She taught me to dye my hair," Mako says, looking out the window. "And when I was younger, she let me draw–her hair was gone, and I used to decorate her head with markers." She looks back down into her lap, at her folded hands. "The marshal was too serious, she always told me. She made me promise to get him to smile more."

Raleigh opens his mouth, reconsiders, and then speaks anyways. "I wish I'd known her. And the marshal, too. They–" he stops, like he's trying to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. "He lost a copilot too."

_He didn't talk about Tamsin with us,_ Tendo thinks. _A marshal can't be too human._

He understands. It's not what he would have wanted, but it's what was needed, and nobody understands sacrifice like a Ranger.

There's no point in wishing that he had known a dead man better. It won't help either of them now. The least he can do is try to put together the pieces he left behind. The least he can do for any of the pilots.

"It's late," Mako interjects, standing up from the chair with Raleigh. "We've imposed on you too long, Tendo. You must be tired."

"It's no trouble at all, Mako," he says, and he means it. For the first time in nearly two months, the tight feeling in his chest is gone.

Impulsively, as he watches them walk out the door, he blurts out, "Come back tomorrow night. All of you."

Hermann half-turns in surprise, but Raleigh calls out, "Yeah, of course," from the hallway, and Newt gives him a thumbs-up before taking Hermann's elbow and half-dragging him out.

The room is quiet for the first time for the evening. Lately, Tendo's always wanted to be alone, since Pitfall; it's easier to avoid thinking about what happened that way.

Tonight, though, the silence feels wrong for the first time in a long time.

\---

It becomes a tradition–every night, sometimes every other when some of them can't make it–sitting in LOCCENT together, waiting for transmissions. It becomes a tradition, and Tendo gets used to working over the shouting matches behind him, Mako starts scheduling her meetings earlier to not interfere, Hermann and Raleigh bring in extra pillows and blankets for everyone because sitting in the LOCCENT chairs for more than an hour comfortably is impossible.

And slowly, slow enough that he almost doesn't notice, the world shifts a little bit closer to normal.

When the transmissions–not one pilot at a time now, multiple transmissions overlapping and cutting each other off–

_Stop ignoring me._

_...’m not. Head hurts._

_You think I don’t know that? You make mine hurt too._

_...’m sorry._

_Remember that the next time you try to outdrink someone, Alexsis._

_You drank...same as me._

_But I didn’t drink it all in ten minutes and then pass out on the table._

_...remind...next time. Bad idea._

_I will. Now just try not to throw up on the instruments and let me take care of this._

("Somebody outdrank Alexsis?" "Somebody tried. Technically, three somebodys." "And lost." "Constantly. That was the first thing they did when the Kaidanovskys got to Hong Kong." "Get into a drinking contest?" "Yeah. Crazy kids." "They thought they could beat them because they beat Soyi and Yuna the last time they came over–" "Everyone can beat Soyi and Yuna. They can't hold their liquor at all." "That's what I told them, too. Maybe they were too drunk to understand by then." "They were already drunk?" "Only drunk twenty year olds are stupid enough to challenge Russians to a drinking contest.")

_Did you finish your coffee?_

_What? No, I left it–duck, now–on the desk._

_You don’t mean the nightstand, do you?_

_We only have one–watch out, on your left–desk in that room, Kaori._

_...that’s not good._

_What’s wrong?_

_If Ayame–activate the fang blades–if she gets ahold of that–_

_Don’t worry, it’s cold by now._

_I’m not worried about that, I’m worried about her drinking it._

_It’s caffeine, she’ll be fine._

_Duc, she bounces off the walls after we give her a lollipop. If she drinks that coffee, our room will look like a bomb hit it._

_…_

_…_

_We should be getting back home._

_Yeah._

("Ayame?" "Their daughter. She's maybe seven or eight." "I never knew Duc and Kaori had a kid." "She's living with her grandparents now." "...Oh. I–how old was she when...?" "Three or four, at most." "I wonder if she remembers them?" "She was probably too young." "We should bring her to the Dome, guys. Then she can have a bunch of cool aunts and uncles to tell her stories about how badass her parents were–" "I doubt her grandparents would agree." "You want to, though, Mako, I can tell." "I...I think this is not a bad place for a girl to grow up. She can be happy.")

_Why the hell did we paint this thing green, anyways?_

_Well, you know, hydras and stuff, right? Like, big-ass snakes? Snakes are greenish, right?_

_Only some snakes. And I'm pretty sure hydras are purple._

_I'm pretty sure that hydras don't exist, but okay, whatever you say._

_This shade of green pisses me off._

_Don't take out your anger on a color._

_No, it really does! It looks like we tried to paint her camouflage and ran out of brown paint to do the brown parts._

_What?_

_Look, we pilot a giant robot. We can't camouflage it no matter what-_

_We never wanted to!_

_Exactly! So she shouldn't be painted this shade of green!_

("They're from Hydra, right?" "Yeah." "...Was the green really that bad?" "Nah, Ken just cared a lot about that stuff. I remember she almost disemboweled me when I came to work in a ratty t-shirt. She went out and bought me piles of 'acceptable' clothes and left them on my bed." "That was sweet of her." "Yeah, she left the bill too." "Ah." "Is _that_ where the bowtie's from?" "Yeah. You can thank them for this." "I wonder what she'd say about Herm's fashion." "Newton, I think she would have more of a problem with yours, considering how your tattoos clash with everything you wear." "At least I'm not some boring old geezer who–" "Guys, guys, we won't be able to hear them if you keep yelling.")

When the transmissions don't come, everyone still manages to find excuses to end up hanging around in LOCCENT anyways. They swap stories about pilots they haven't seen in years, until the names fall easily off their tongues and the faces rise smiling in their minds. The pilots turn from ghosts to solid memory, one story at a time.

Simple stories are the best. Pilots doing stupid, childish, ridiculous things–legends caught in the light of humanity.

There are tears and grief, still, but more and more, they're replaced by acceptance instead. Tendo knows that they'll all be fine the day that one of Coyote's transmissions comes on and Mako listens to it with a smile on her face for the first time since Pitfall.

Sometimes other people join them–techs and scientists and trainers lining the walls, listening to Raleigh tell stories about how he and Yancy tried to learn to climb trees like their neighbor's cat and ended up nearly breaking their necks instead, or Tendo talk about how Ili would drink half his coffee every morning and then complain about how bad black coffee tasted for the rest of the day.

The one person who's never there is Marshal Hansen. At first, Tendo chalked it up to him being busy with the decommissioning; then, to wanting rest after everything that's happened these past few months. But it's been three months, and Tendo's noticed, when he leaves LOCCENT, that he's almost never outside his office, unless it's for some marshal-related duty.

Which is why, when he opens the door to pick up the coat he forgot one evening after everyone's left, he nearly has a heart attack when a chair swivels around and the marshal’s in it.

"Did I scare you?" he asks, the side of his mouth crooking upwards as he stands.

"Just wasn't expecting anyone to be here, sir," Tendo answers, closing the door behind him after recovering from the initial shock. He takes a closer look at the man in front of him.

Maybe it's because he hasn't seen him for a while, but the exhaustion in the marshal's face shocks him. The lines around his mouth are deeper than before, and when he's not speaking, his mouth is set in a constant frown. What scares Tendo most, though, is how much his eyes have changed. The steely determination is still there, but thinner and more brittle, and behind them, the good humor has been replaced by something frighteningly similar to desperation.

Marshal Hansen leans forward a little in his chair with his shoulders hunched over. "I won't be here for long. Won't keep you from the things you need to do."

"It's no trouble at all, sir," Tendo replies, suddenly realizing that the marshal isn't wearing dress blues for the first time since Pitfall that Tendo can remember. He's wearing the Striker bomber jacket instead, the collar turned up against his neck, and from time to time he reaches up and rubs his fingers over the material. It's a habit that he's never had before. Tendo absentmindedly wonders where he picked it up.

The jacket doesn't fit him either, although it's almost unnoticeable at a glance. It's a little too broad at the shoulders and too short at the arms and waist, designed for someone a little shorter and stockier than him.

_No points for guessing who_ , Tendo thinks.

"Is there something you need, sir-"

The marshal waves him off. "It's Herc. I've known you for longer than anyone else in this Dome, Tendo, I'm not letting you get all formal on me now. Besides, this isn't an official visit."

That explains the lack of uniform, then. "You're here about the transmissions."

"Have you gotten any from Striker?"

Tendo's silence answers the question. "Sir–Herc, I'm sorry–"

"What'd I tell you about not apologizing for things that aren't your fault?"

Tendo grins sheepishly. "I got a bad memory, Herc." His smile fades quickly. "I wish I could tell you something different, but..."

There's silence between them for a second. "I never did believe in ghosts," Herc finally says, quietly. "Don't think Chuck did either." Tendo stays quiet. "Never really understood why someone'd want to come back, you know?"

"Mako was talking to me about that," Tendo says. "People with unfinished business, that's what it is, isn't it?"

"Unfinished business," Herc repeats softly. "So that Chuck's not coming back, that's a good thing. Because it means he's happy where he is."

"That's one way of looking at it."

A small, sad smile appears on Herc's face. "It makes me a pretty shitty parent then, doesn't it? If I still want him to come back anyways?"

Tendo doesn't know what to say to that. "You're not a bad father," he says finally.

"That's up for the kid to decide, isn't it?" Herc answers. He closes his eyes. "I wouldn't blame Chuck for what he chose."

Silence falls again. Tendo scours his mind for something to say and comes up blank, because how do you even begin to try and stop that kind of pain? Finally, he says, "When'd you guys get Max?"

Herc looks up, surprised. _It's worth a shot_ , Tendo thinks.

For a long while, Herc is quiet, and Tendo thinks that he's just going to stand up and leave instead of talking to him. And why would he, anyways? Those memories are his. Tendo has no right to them, and he knows it.

Still.

It’s silent for long enough that he doesn’t think Herc’s going to say anything. The silence in the room presses down on both of them, oddly empty without the quiet whirr of the machines to mask it. Tendo looks down at his feet, traces his fingers over the tattoos on his wrist behind his back.

Just when he's decided to give up, Herc starts talking, and once he starts, it's like a floodgate opens.

It's past midnight when Herc stops. "Ah," he says, standing up. "I should get going." Both of them stride towards the door.

"Sorry about keeping you up–" Herc begins, and Tendo cuts him off.

"Don't apologize for things that aren't your fault."

Herc's smile as he leaves almost reaches his eyes.

\---

The memories never go away. Tendo still wakes up with screams echoing in his ears. There are some days when Mako lies in bed curled under her blankets, or when Raleigh comes to breakfast wearing a sweater one size too big. Herc still stands stiffly when he's being Marshal Hansen, and the uniform never looks right on him.

They don't go away, and it doesn't get easier, but they find a way to keep going, anyways. A month into the impromptu story sessions, Tendo catches Herc leaning against the door, half in the shadows, in his civvies. He stays for the entire time that day, and the next, and the next.

Scars don't disappear, but they fade.

The dome finally closes a month later. Tendo stands in front of the dome with Alison beside him, watching as they lock the doors of what’s been his home for the last three years for the last time.

The transmissions will stop now, he thinks. Then again, he thought that last time, and look at what happened.

Maybe the ghosts will find a way to them anyways.

He looks around at them, pilots and techs and scientists and marshals and friends, and thinks, _Either way, we'll be okay._

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is based on a kink meme prompt I found a year or two ago (which says something about how long it takes me to write literally anything) that I can't find right now, but which was essentially about all the characters being haunted by dead pilots and trying to figure out where the voices were coming from. I started out trying for those supernatural elements, but it sort of got away from me, so if this was your prompt, I'm sorry, and I hope you like this anyways!
> 
> 2\. Full disclosure: I literally wrote this fic 100% to give me an excuse to write about all the pilots that we never get to meet that I have far too many headcanons about.
> 
> 3\. I have no idea if Stacker Pentecost knows his robots, but I do know that [Idris Elba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd3KIJ8mX5M) absolutely does not, and that's good enough for me.
> 
> 4\. Title is from Richard Siken's "Black Telephone," which is also where the quote at the beginning is from.


End file.
